• The conference season continues for Big 12 teams this weekend with three series on tap. Texas Tech will stay on the road and travel to TCU, while Baylor will host its second-straight league series with Oklahoma State visiting Waco. K-State and Oklahoma open conference play with a series in Manhattan where the Wildcats are 7-0 on the season. The entire OSU-BU series will be on FOX networks.

• The Bears and Jayhawks are each 2-1 in league play after winning series last weekend. The Bears edged Tech by one run in the first two games last weekend and were holding on to a 1-0 lead before the Red Raiders scored seven runs with two outs in the eighth inning to avoid the sweep in Sunday’s series finale.

• The Jayhawks used late runs as well to clinch their first series win in Austin since 1996, scoring five in the ninth to clinch the series on Sunday, 6-1. The five runs snapped a streak of 30 consecutive scoreless innings by the UT bullpen.

• Four of the six conference games from last weekend were decided by one run with all but Sunday’s games being one-run finals.

• Five league teams enter the week ranked in the top 25 of at least one national poll with the Longhorns appearing in all four, including as high as No. 15 (Baseball America). Kansas enters the top 25 for the first time this season with a No. 18 ranking from Collegiate Baseball. Oklahoma State sits at No. 20 on two lists, while TCU is 24th (NCBWA) and Texas Tech is 25th (USA Today).

• Seniors Ross Kivett (K-State) and Mark Payton (Texas) are approaching the 100 career RBI marks. Kivett is two shy while Payton needs five more. Payton also extended his active reached base streak to 60 games. It is the second-longest streak in conference history.

• West Virginia has three upperclassmen ranked in the top 10 in the league in batting - Ryan McBroom (fifth, .365), Bobby Boyd (tied sixth, .362) and Billy Fleming (ninth, . 349).

• After starting the season 1-7, K-State has rattled off 10 wins and is 11-7 entering the sixth week of the season. The K-State starting pitching corps is 8-0 with a 2.73 ERA during the Wildcats’ current 10-game winning streak.

• Baylor’s Dillon Newman was named the Big 12 Pitcher of the Week, the second straight honor for a BU hurler. With Josh Michalec earning the accolade last week, Baylor claims back-to-back Pitcher of the Week awards for the first time since the 2005 season. Mitch Meyer (K-State) was named Player of the Week while Oklahoma’s Sheldon Neuse is the Newcomer of the Week.